Maggie Fox is the Founder and CEO of Social Media Group, one of the largest independent social media agencies in the world. While working at SMG, Maggie has helped to create and execute social media strategies for the  likes of Ford Motors, SAP, Thomson Reuters, 3M and CNN. Maggie is a regular  speaker at the top social media events and has been interviewed by The Washington Post, The Globe and Mail, CBC Radio and CTV News. She was named one of the Top 100 Marketers in the 100th anniversary edition of Marketing Magazine. Maggie also sits on the Advisory Board for Social Media Today and My Venture Pad sites.You can follow Maggie on Twitter , Facebook or LinkedIn. Read the full story

Was watching this new inspiring TED talk by Seth Godin and remembered my earlier research about tribes and brand communities which are so important  in analysing the post-modern consumer behaviour . Here are some of the main concepts of tribes and brand communities reviewed in the research:

“In the post-modernity period which encourages a move away from individualism towards a search for more social bonds, these communities tend to reorganize themselves into neo-tribes, networks of people gathering homogeneously together for social interaction, often around consumption and brands (Simmons, 2008). From the marketers perspective it is very important to consider tribal relationships as it may be a powerful tool in building loyalty and trust among the consumers. Even though neo-tribes and brand communities are two different concepts they share very similar features and often are very related to each other. According to Cova and Cova (2002) the main differences are that the brand communities are explicitly commercial whereas tribes are not, furthermore, brand communities are concerned about relationship between brand and consumer, whereas tribes – relationship between consumers. Muniz and O’Guinn (2001) (citied in Ouwersloot and Odekerken-Schroeder, 2008) describes a brand community as a specialized, non-geographically bound community that is based on a structured set of social relations among admirers of a brand. Mairinger (2008) suggests that:

• The brand community is not just formed around a brand; it creates the brand.
• The brand community is not just formed around a product; it is part of the product.

Therefore, the creation and development of brand communities is one of the most important tasks of the marketer as it can guarantee the company success in the long term. According to Mairinger (2008) brand communities can add real experiences and emotion to the brand, reach the long tail, address both individualism and collectivity needs and replace the celebrity endorsers with community brand advocates. Considering that 49 % of people made a purchase based on friends recommendations on social media property (Razorfish, 2008), social media can be viewed as an important channel and tool to interact, manage and enable these brand communities.”

Barry Furby is the Co-Founder of techMAP, the online and offline community for Marketing, Advertising and PR professionals which derived from one of the biggest social media meet-up’s in UK. He is also  the Founder of Fresh Resources, the digital recruitment agency which  provides a specialist service that is truly passionate about social media and digital marketing. You can follow Barry on Twitter and Linkedin.

G: How and why did you get into social media business?

B: My background is in recruitment so I’ve always been in the business of connecting people in the digital space. The recruitment business is typically a great training ground for entrepreneurial folk, where sales is the focus but customer service and relationship management is equally important. I’ve always loved technology and right now I love the way this industry is shaping up. My particular interest is to leverage online tools and community to create valuable offline connections. I’d love techMAP to connect great people and shape the way we do business – big statement, but I’m up for the challenge.

G: What is it like to be a real Social Media Citizen?

B: I treat each platform differently in terms of messages and conversation that take place but across all of them I treat mentions and direct messages like my inbox, responding as soon as possible – although it’s easy with all these things to get side tracked. I try to manage short bursts of work to get things done (30-45mins at a time). It’s important to find a balance of being social AND getting the day job(s) done! iTunes is my saviour, it allows me to sink into my own little work hard world one song at a time!

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